The Times-Picayune archiveTulane president Scott Cowen told Green Wave supporters Wednesday: 'You don't have to wait a decade (to see the football team improve). I don't have the patience to wait a decade.'

Cowen took the podium at the Wilson Center in front of a somewhat skeptical group of football fans who stood or sat on chairs, some even hunkering down on the floor to hear Cowen and Green Wave Athletic Director Rick Dickson talk about the university’s commitment to the program.

“I probably haven’t (done this before),” Cowen said after the town hall-style meeting. “In all fairness, this is the first time since the storm (Hurricane Katrina in 2005) that I’ve addressed directly an athletic group, especially so candidly as I did tonight about a number of things. But I wanted them to hear from me because otherwise they may misinterpret me and think I don’t care, that I’m not interested and so on.

“It’s not that; it’s about setting priorities, making sure you get the basics done right first before you move on to the next thing. We have more of the basics right, on the academics right, and the financial side, and now I think we can focus on football.”

Dickson and Cowen directly addressed those concerns, passing out “The Playbook: Inside the Game Plan for Tulane Football” — an administration-produced pamphlet that outlines increased funding for the football program. In the document, Tulane said it will increase the 2011 football budget by 45 percent and increase the overall budget of the department by 30 percent.

In 2009-10, Tulane reported to the Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics that it spent $6,686,956 on football and $21,309,000 on athletics as a whole. That ranked Tulane 10th among the 12 Conference USA schools in football expenses and 11th in overall expenses.

“I know starting this year, (the budget) will grow more next year. One reason is because we’re playing more games,” Dickson said. “It means (increases) in recruiting budget, it means in staffing we’ve made some moves that have taken more resources. We’ve added a fulltime academic counselor just for football. We’ve added a full-time football-only strength coach, just as well as rounding out some of the areas we hadn’t been able to fill since ’05. Just to make sure they have, we have, all the tools that are necessary. There shouldn’t be operationally anything that they don’t have, everything necessary.”

Cowen drew several rounds of applause during his speech, particularly when his voice rose about his expectations for football.

“You don’t have to wait a decade,” he said. “I don’t have the patience to wait a decade. Many of you, God bless you, have been following us for 60 years, and you’re still coming for two and a half winning seasons per decade.

“I don’t know what you would possibly do if we had seven (winning seasons in a decade). I don’t know that you could live through it; I don’t know that your heart is strong enough, but I want to test it. So from the board down to me down to the athletic department, we’re here to let you know this is our line of sight now, our line of sight is football, and we’re going to work as hard and long as it takes to get this done.”

Several Tulane board members were in attendance, including Doug Hertz, an Atlanta businessman and chair of the Tulane Board Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics.

“It was good stuff,” Hertz said. “I think Scott and Rick both expressed the views of the board.”

Hertz said the school had to tackle post-Katrina academic matters and financial concerns before looking at the football program.

“I had said to Scott, when we’re ready, we need to re-evaluate athletics,” Hertz said. “Why would we accept mediocrity in athletics when we won’t accept it in any other phase of the institution? I said we either make an investment or we need to change our strategy about athletics.”

Cowen also addressed the possibility of an on-campus football stadium.

“I want you to know we are looking at every aspect of that program and what it takes to be successful in that program for sustained level of success within the confines our resources and priorities at the University,” he said. “And when I say we are looking at everything, you know we are looking at playing venues. I would have never dared say that before Katrina much less after Katrina, but I do think that’s one of the pieces of the puzzle its going to take to have a successful program here for years to come.”

Hertz — and the applauding audience — couldn’t have agreed more whole-heartedly.

“I think what Scott said today is look, we’re addressing the facilities issue, we’ve addressed the support issue for the department and the student-athletes, so now we have to look at facilities,” he said. “We won’t win unless we can get the right student athletes here; we have to get the right student-athletes here, and we can’t recruit them if we don’t have the facilities.”